Necessary
by Evil Riggs
Summary: An old hermit of the Wastes encounters a posse on a mission. A Fallout III tribute to Robert B. Parker.


**NECESSARY**

By the time they rode up to the cabin, the old man was standing out front with a shotgun at his side. It looked ancient, but functional. The old man licked his lips and let his eyes flit across the riders.

"This ain't right," he said. "You know this ain't right."

The lead rider leaned in the saddle and swatted absently at a circling horsefly. He was a big man in a tore-up Regulator's duster. A web of scars spread under one of his eyes, across the cheekbone and up to the corner of this thin mouth. "Don't have nothin' to do with what's right or wrong. Only what's necessary," he said.

It was hot and the morning smelled of concrete dust. The air over the cabin's scrubby yard hung stale and silent.

"Still ain't right," the old man said.

The Regulator said nothing. One of the other riders spat a gob of tobacco into the dust. Next to him, the last rider scratched at the stubble under his chin and stared at the old man on the porch.

"Well?" the old man said.

"You gonna let us do our job?" the Regulator said.

"You know I can't do that. I can't let you do that."

"That's a mighty shame," the Regulator said.

Again, the dooryard went quiet. Out on the coastal steppe, a hot breeze sifted through the dune grass and whistled through cracked foundations. The three horses swished their tails. Flies buzzed in languid arcs.

The old man shivered, licked his chapped lips, and sighed. Beneath his mud-patched overalls, sweat soaked through the gray of his undershirt. He could see, plain as day, the guns that the riders carried. The two that held back had rifles slung over their shoulders and snub-nose pistols at their hips. The Regulator wore a pair of handguns in cut-down leather holsters, oiled black as a Deathclaw's eye. They were probably born Chinese, back when you could distinguish such things.

The old man said, "You gonna shoot me?"

"Might," said the Regulator. "If you draw on us first."

A single gnarled finger caressed the stock of the shotgun. "Might come to that," the old man said.

"You'll die."

"Well," the old man said, "might'n I'll take you with me."

The Regulator's horse swung its head, impatient, and snorted. The other two riders snapped reins and led their horses out away from the Regulator. They swung back to face the cabin and the old man, arrayed now in an irregular triangle. The Regulator and his horse sat at its point. "Maybe one of us. Not all of us," he said.

"God_damn _it!" The old man stomped one sandaled foot. The warped gray boards of the porch made a _whop_. "How in the name o' the Glow can you justify this? This ain't right and I can't let it be right! That poor thing ain't no danger to nobody! It would've starved or been killed out there if I hadn't saved it. It's helpless."

"Would've been better if you did just that," the Regulator said.

"The hell you say!"

"Wouldn't have this mess we're in now, would we?"

For this, the old man had no response. His hand rested on the shotgun and sweat gathered in the lean hollows of his body. It shone at his hairline. His red-rimmed eyes tracked from rider to rider.

One of the other riders – the dark-haired fellow who kept worrying at his unshaven neck – said, "Just step out of the way, old-timer. We'll be done and out before you know it. No mess and no fuss. No more bother."

The Regulator nodded. He never took his eyes off the old man.

"It's wrong," the old man said softly. "I been alone so long. You can't take this from me."

The Regulator said, "If we allow that thing to live, it'll end up killin' you. Killin' you and others. Can't let that happen. Never again." He fell silent, as if in consideration. Finally, he said, "We ain't monsters. We know this seems terrible. But we also know that it needs to happen, or other folks'll end up payin' for it."

The old man looked down. He licked his lips. He nodded – not with assent, but with understanding. His fingers curled and uncurled about the shotgun.

Horseflies spun and dove; dust spiraled across the sky; the Regulator's horse pawed distractedly at the packed earth. Somewhere, a buzzard called.

The old man pulled up the shotgun. The Regulator's gun slid from its holster like greased wind. A single, terse report. The old man fell, hands still gripping his gun. The white stalks of his hair ran red. His body struck the porch, rolled, and then slumped halfway off its edge.

"Damn." The Regulator blew out a held breath. "Damn. That didn't have to happen. It shouldn't have happened." He holstered the gun and inhaled air that was hot and rich with cordite. The other two riders were already swinging down off their horses.

The Regulator grimaced as he dismounted. As he stepped across the barren yard, he favored his right leg. Behind him, the tobacco-chewing rider said, "Should we tie up the horses?"

"No. This won't take long," the Regulator said. He mounted the steps to the cabin and paused to look at the shocked, dead eyes of the old man. Then he opened the cabin's flimsy front door and proceeded inside.

It was still dark within. Odd beams of morning light pierced between the wallboards. Dust motes churned at his approach. The cabin only had one room, organized around an insanely old EZ-Atom stove. A pair of crumbling plastic chairs. Uneven metal shelving made from half-rusted girders and bolted into the wall. Jerry-rigged lanterns. Rows of bottles and plastic jugs. A squat ice chest in one corner, splattered with mud and filth. The place smelled of sand, congealed fat, and recently-cooked dog.

In the far corner was a tarnished metal bed frame. On top of that was a mattress one size too small for the frame. The mattress was yellow and frayed with age. It was piled with patched blankets.

The other two riders came in behind the Regulator. They said nothing.

One of the bundles of blankets stirred as the Regulator approached. He reached down, real slow, and pulled at it.

The creature swaddled in the old blanket squirmed and made a cooing noise. It looked up at the Regulator with big, yellow eyes. Its skin was dry, rough, and mottled gray-green. It pawed the air with chubby hands that had two thumbs each.

"Don't look like nothin' at all," said one of the other riders. He spoke real quiet, as if he stood at the altar of a Brotherhood temple. "Nothin' worth all this."

"No, it don't," said the Regulator. "And that's why we got to do what we got to do."

The Regulator drew out the same gun he had used to kill the old man. The creature in the blanket smiled and blew a little spit bubble. It made a squeaky, amused sound.

The Regulator stared, his expression neutral. When he raised the gun, it was very slow and very deliberate. He snaked his finger over the trigger, blinked, and did what was necessary.


End file.
